Your doing a great job mate It feels good to chop out all that rust & filler and replace with decent metal doesn't it Keep up the good work!
Brilliant news dude When shes back on the road you and the mrs will have to pop down here for a day out It would be nice to see you both again
That would be cool. Seems like years since we saw you last. Due to horizontal rain and hurricane force gales i've not got much done on the westy today. I did get this bit made to repair the corner of the front panel: Should look OK once welded in and smoothed out with a smidgin of filler.
We have had the same weather here of late dude and its a nightmare to work in especially if your welding Looks like you have got a nice shape to that repair piece it will be nice and tidy after welding and grinding back It was camperjam 2010 i last saw you both so its been approx 15 months god doesent time fly
That panel is made from part of the old door so its OG VW steel so there should be no problems with it rejecting the transplanted metal. Time has just been flying along. It'll be summer again soon.
A man after my own heart A lot of my small repairs are made from the part i cut off the bottom of the sliding door
Between cloud bursts i managed to get the rest of the inner step welded up. Not that pretty but after a little grinding and some seam sealer it should be able to take on jodie marsh in a beauty contest. ;D
It'll get a complete arch or two at some point in the future so as long as its strong and looks half decent i'm fne with it.
Checking to see if the arch still fits. It does. You can see how badly the 'new' door fits the hole. I can get my fingers into this gap: But its scraping the arch here: I think my only option is to bend the hinges one the A pillar slightly (or whack them with a BFH). I welded the patch into the front panel. Close up. I ended up with a bit of distortion but nothing a skim of filler won't cure.
Id try every adjustment you can before taking a hammer to the hinges dude Is that not the door you took of before fitting the arch?
^^what Para said, I'd try all the other options first. The steps looking good, nice to see some solid metal back in there
What adjustments are there? It only goes in or out or up and down at the hinges. If it was the later hinges i could add a shim behind each hinge to move it, but if i do that on the early hinges it just makes the fit worse as it moves the door backwards towards the B pillar more. Its a replacement door that i fitted (or tried to) before the arch disolved into a pile of paper and filler when the door was dropped onto it. The original door fitted fine with good gaps, but after swapping the hinges onto this one it doesn't. I've made a door hinge realignment tool which bolts to the A pillar and will allow me to tweak the hinge mounts a little. It only needs to move forwards maybe 5mm to fit nicely.
Found a bit more rust to sort out in the top of the arch so made a couple of patches. Hopefully i'll get them and the step welded up tomorrow if the weather stays dry.
Today i finally got the arch welded on. ;D Closing panel made and welded on: Bit of filler applied: Door still needs the hinge mounts bending a little. Also got this welded up.
nice work on the arch and closing panel I see what you mean now about not being able to adjust the doors if the old door fitted ok could it be a problem with the hinges on the replacement door rather than the A post?
Have you tried slightly open and hanging on it? If you do knock the hinge forward, take it steady as it'll be pretty well impossible to get it back the other way.
The old door didn't catch anywhere but when i transfered the hinges over (late door early style hinge) it now catches. I've made a 4ft bar with an attachment which bolts to the hinge plate on the A pillar so i can tweak it a little. I need to take the door off anyway to seam seal and paint the pillar anyway and to replace the wobbly bottom hinge.
